Postal Telegraph Company (Postal Telegraph & Cable Corporation) was a major operator of

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

networks in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

prior to its consolidation with

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the co ...

in 1943.Nonnenmacher, Tomas
History of the U.S. Telegraph Industry
/ref> Postal partnered with

Commercial Cable Company The Commercial Cable Company was founded in New York in 1884 by John William Mackay and James Gordon Bennett, Jr. Their motivation was to break the then virtual monopoly of Jay Gould on transatlantic telegraphy and bring down prices (particular ...

for overseas cable messaging. Postal was founded in the 1880s by

John William Mackay John William Mackay (November 28, 1831 – July 20, 1902) was an Irish-American industrialist who rose from rags to riches. Born into abject poverty and raised in the slums of New York City, Mackay joined in the California gold rush in 1851. ...

, an entrepreneur who had made a fortune in silver mining in the

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the U ...

. Mackay's original purpose was to provide a domestic wire network to directly link with the

Atlantic Cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were Submarine communications cable, undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is a largely obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decom ...

. Mackay built the Postal network by the purchase of existing insolvent firms. The company was initially called ''The Pacific Postal Telegraph Cable Co''. Under president Albert Brown Chandler, the Postal network was able to achieve sufficient economy of scale to compete with Western Union, occasionally controlling as much as 20% of the business. By 1893, the company's rate of growth had allowed it to become the only viable competitor to Western Union. It had grown so large that management had to move out of the company's New York City headquarters at 187 Broadway to accommodate more operations staff. Chandler oversaw the design and construction of the Postal Telegraph Company Building, a new headquarters at 253 Broadway and Murray Street. In the film of

William Saroyan William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''The ...

's ''The Human Comedy'' the story is mainly told through the eyes of a teenager working as a delivery boy for the Postal Telegraph Company, and some of the action takes place in the telegraph office.AFI Catalog
The Human Comedy
(1943).

References

External links

Gallery

File:(King1893NYC) pg215 POSTAL-TELEGRAPH-CABLE COMPANY'S BUILDING, BROADWAY AND MURRAY STREET.jpg, Postal Telegraph Headquarters Building, New York, 1893. File:Postal Telegraph Messengers. (Indiana has no age limit for messengers.) Indianapolis, Ind. - NARA - 523084.jpg, Postal Telegraph Messengers, Indianapolis, IN, 1912. File:1909 Postal Telegraph Cable Company stamp.jpg, Postal Telegraph Cable Company stamp, 1909. File:POSTAL_TELEGRAPH_WIRE_-_NARA_-_515196.jpg, A Postal Telegram, 1942. Telecommunications systems Western Union {{US-company-stub